Pages

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Remember the Chicago 19-year-old- Mohammed Hamzah Khan - who was caught at the airport last October trying to make his way to Syria to fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, along with his 16-year-old bro and 17-year-old sister? Well, an inconsolable mama Khan is really upset at those ISIS dudes for brainwashing Muslim kids to join ISIS, especially after the "unspeakable acts of horror" in Paris last week. So upset, she felt the need to speak her mind- in the courthouse lobby, of course- right after her poor baby pleaded not guilty to attempting to aid and abet a foreign terrorist organization. The guy does face up to 15 years in prison, so a little anti-terrorist rhetoric is opportune.

Zarine Khan, standing next to her husband Shafi, had this to say:

"The venom spewed by these groups and the violence committed by them ... are completely at odds with our Islamic faith." "We condemn the brainwashing and recruiting of children through the use of social media and the Internet."

And this message for ISIS and its appointed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi:

"We have a message for ISIS, Mr. Baghdadi and his fellow social media recruiters," she said, raising her voice. "Leave our children alone!"

But this woman needs to take a good, hard look at herself and her bearded husband for the reasons why her three kids, all of whom lived at home, chose to run away to join join an Islamic terrorist group. She wears a niqab in a Western country. Not even a hijab. A niqab! It covers everything but her eyes. No effort to assimilate and integrate for these Indian-born immigrants and their U.S.-born kids. As devout as the parents are it's not surprising the kids could become so easily radicalized, if they weren't somehow radicalized at home. They claim they had no idea

Mohammed's attorney, Thomas Durkin, says the guy was radicalized online. The letter he left his parents is proof enough, along with the ISIS flag doodles. And his sister posted on her Twitter account @DeathIsVNear a smiley face and a heart in response to an ISIS propaganda video full of beheadings. Mohammed still aspires to live in an Islamic Caliphate. Were his parent's that stupid that they had no clue what was going on in their kids' lives?

Mohammed wasn't the only one who left a letter. The other two did as well.

Mohammed wrote:

“An Islamic State has been established and it is thus obligatory upon every able-bodied male and female to migrate there." “Muslims have been crushed under foot for too long. . . . This nation is openly against Islam and Muslims. . . . I do not want my progeny to be raised in a filthy environment like this.”

Where does a 19-year-old learn to hate the West? From uber religious parents.

Sis wrote:

“Death is inevitable, and all of the times we enjoyed will not matter as we lay on our death beds. Death is an appointment, and we cannot delay or postpone, and what we did to prepare for our death is what will matter.”

The kids asked the parents to join them and to not tell the police.

When the FBI showed up at their door with a search warrant they were allegedly shocked and "stunned." In an interview at Durkin's office one day, Zarine insisted:

“What they wrote in those letters is not from us." “Those are not our teachings. That’s not what we believe in. This didn’t even come from our family, friends, neighbors — nobody.”

You won't convince me that it didn't somehow start at home.

"We tried to be the best parents we could,” she said. “That’s all I can say — we tried our best. And they are good kids. This thing came out of the blue. We are still trying to figure it out.”

Tried their best? Obviously not. One child running off, I might believe it, but all three, there's something fundamentally wrong in the way they were raised. They even went to an Islamic school, who knows how they were indoctrinated there.

And then this:

Shafi Khan, who came to Chicago from India almost 30 years ago, and Zarine Khan, who followed her husband 20 years ago, said they consider themselves “average” Muslims, no more or less religious than any of their friends and neighbors in Bolingbrook, Ill., a suburb of about 73,000 people southwest of Chicago.

They try to pray five times a day but said they often don’t. Shafi Khan wears a bushy beard and a white knit skullcap, which he said is an attempt to follow the example of the prophet Muhammad. Zarine Khan covers her head and most of her face, which she considers a sign of modesty, not extreme piety.

Sorry Zarine, but the niqab is a sign of extreme piety and religious fundamentalism, not a sign of modesty.

The Washington Post article inadvertently, or maybe not, points out all the contradictions in how the kids were actually raised and how the parents claim they raised them. It's worth a read.

Younger bro and sis lucked out, they have not been charged, as of yet. They also have a three-year-old girl.